I can't remember that far back!
I can. It was a stuffed monkey. Never had a name but just a cotton stuffed monkey about 18 inches long. Rusty red cordaroy body with cream colored face, hands and feet. Button eyes and red stitching mouth in a slight smile.
See, my Father was halfway around the world in India protecting mom and me from the evil "Zaps" as I called them. So monkey was my protector in lieu of a dad. And when Mom was "mean" to me, like making me eat my squash, monkey was my confidant and an understanding if silent companion. Oh, we had great adventures monkey and me. Monkey gained several honrable battle wounds. They were carefully stitched up by a great aunt who knew how to sew in the old time way. Ten stiches to the inch.
When Dad finally got home and I had a real live companion again and bigger boy toys monkey lost my interest. Went on to a Lionel electric train and a Red Ryder BB gun. Things like that. Monkey disapeard from my life along with all my other baby toys.
When we were cleaning out the house after my mom died five years ago we empied the old cedar chest.
In the left back corner, wrapped in one of my baby blankets was monkey.
I lost it. You want to make fun of a sixty-five year old man sitting in the middle of the floor, clutching a stuffed monkey and crying like a child now is your chance. I don't care
Monkey is sitting on the book shelf behind me right now. He is kind of old and frayed around the edges. Pretty fragile and would fall apart if you handled him rough. Hell, so am I.
BCR
